Itapemirim has overdue wages and debts, lack of planes and wrong data

Itapemirim Transporte Aéreos, which announced last Friday (18th) the temporary suspension of all operations, had been accumulating problems in its six months of activity. The suspension of flights shortly before Christmas provoked an uprising in customers, who protested at airports across the country.

The company, which began operating in June of this year, had to deal with delays in salaries and employee benefits, suspension of the workers’ health plan, debts with suppliers, non-compliance with schedules, flight cancellations, customer service criticized and sending data wrong number of passengers for ANAC (National Civil Aviation Agency).

Sought out by the report before announcing the suspension of operations, the company said it was resolving the issues.

Late wages and suspended health insurance

The employee health plan was suspended since the beginning of December, and the company became the target of a lawsuit filed by the SNA (National Aeronauts Union). Employee salaries and benefits such as food stamps and transportation were also frequently delayed.

In December, the company paid workers twice in installments. There were also complaints that severance pay was not being paid to the fired. In addition, mechanics would be working without adequate protective equipment, according to the category’s union.

According to Clauver Castilho, director of the SNA, union intervention was necessary. “Aeronauts without financial conditions to travel to work communicated the union, and we notified the company that that professional could not attend the planned flight due to lack of conditions to go to work”, says the union leader.

According to Itapemirim, the company went through a specific difficulty, which meant that 50% of each salary was paid at the beginning of the month and the other half was paid by the 17th. The company did not comment on the suspension of employee benefits, lack of payment of severance pay and lack of protective equipment. By the end of the afternoon of this Friday (17), employees reported that payments had not yet fallen into their accounts.

Overdue debts with suppliers

Suppliers also report problems with payments due by Itapemirim. Travel agencies, for example, say they are not receiving late amounts for rebooking tickets and accommodation of passengers who had their flights canceled.

In other services, this is also repeated, reaching million dollar figures, according to the report. In a statement, the company said it was negotiating individually with each of these companies.

Flights canceled while the company was operating

Customers reported that their flights were suddenly canceled, even while the company was operating, and that they were having difficulty contacting the company. Since the beginning of ticket sales, in the first half of 2021, Itapemirim already has more than one thousand complaints formalized on the Consumidor.gov.br platform.

More than half of them were done in the last 30 days. On the Reclame Aqui website, this number exceeds 4,300 complaints. Most are related to the reversal of the amount paid for tickets.

In a statement, Itapemirim said that it had had to readjust its flights since the beginning of December due to the postponement of the arrival of new planes.

The company also stated that it had been supporting the affected passengers, in accordance with Anac rules. In late October, the company’s call center became unavailable after a hacker attack, creating a backlog of calls in recent weeks.

Wrong data and Anac fine

Itapemirim was fined by Anac three times in October and November for failing to comply with the deadline for sending mandatory data, including the number of passengers transported. The final amount of the fine will still be defined after judgment by the agency, but the total may reach R$ 12 thousand.

The company reported that it faced technical problems in formatting the data to be sent to the agency, and that all corrected information was forwarded correctly on December 10th.

Debts and bankruptcy filings

The Itapemirim group is facing a long process of judicial recovery. According to a report by the judicial administrator responsible for the process, EXM Partners, to which the report had access, the company owed around R$ 253 million to its creditors in September, in addition to R$ 2.2 billion in tax debts.

In a statement, the association of creditors and former employees of the Itapemirim group claims that the way in which the company proceeds with the judicial reorganization is “cowardice with the worker”. One of the main reasons for dissatisfaction is the amount allocated to the creation of the airline and Ita Bank, the group’s digital bank.

Until September, approximately R$ 41 million were invested by the group in the two companies, an amount practically sufficient to pay off the group’s labor debts, around R$ 41.5 million. Some creditors even asked the Court for the bankruptcy of the group. According to Itapemirim, these requests have no legal basis, and are an attempt to destabilize the company’s recovery process to be analyzed.

Lossful operation

Participating in the Panrotas Forum at the end of November, Sidnei Piva, owner of Itapemirim, said that the price of tickets charged by the company does not cover the cost of the operation. This loss-making performance is nothing new in the industry, where large airlines experience periods of loss occasionally.

Itapemirim, however, is bitter about not having received a contribution of US$ 500 million (R$ 2.8 billion, at current prices) from an Arab fund to strengthen the new company’s cash flow. The money promised in 2020 did not arrive, and, in an interview with UOL in November, Piva said that the investment would no longer be necessary because he would be seeking capital from small Brazilian investors.

UK billionaire company

In April 2021 Sidnei Piva opened a company called SS Space Capital Group UK LTD in the UK. The company’s face value is 785 million pounds (BRL 5.9 billion), and its purpose revolves around financial services and investments.

This move was the target of strong criticism, as the Itapemirm group owes millions of reais to creditors in Brazil, and it is not clear what the source of the new company’s money is. In a note, the businessman states that SS Space Capital Group UK LTD is duly registered and regulated in the respective UK bodies.

Company complains about lack of planes

Itapemirim has seven aircraft incorporated into its fleet and has operated in 14 airports. This reality is much smaller than the forecast made by the company a few months ago. Before its debut, the company announced that it had plans to reach 35 destinations and 50 aircraft incorporated by June 2022. Of this total, it intended to have 20 aircraft in its fleet by the end of 2021, an expectation that was reduced to ten aircraft.

With the resumption of aviation, the search for stationary planes grew, making this item more scarce. In addition, before returning to flight, planes stopped in the pandemic have to go through a maintenance and check-up cycle, something that can take weeks. Since October, the company’s commercial area has been restructured, with the change of directors and, this week, of other members of the area.

In May, about to start flights, the then president of the airline, Tiago Senna, left his position to work in another segment within the group, taking over Adalberto Bogsan in his place.

Passengers with a scheduled flight should not go to the airport, says Anac

Anac determined that Itapemirim should immediately provide full service to all passengers and communicate, individually, on flight cancellations and re-accommodations. The company must guarantee the reimbursement of air tickets sold, says Anac.

Passengers with scheduled flights should not go to the airport before contacting the airline. Contact should be made by email [email protected]. Anac advises that passengers also use the Consumidor.gov.br platform. “Due to the stoppage of the company’s operations, Anac suspended its Air Operator Certificate”, informed the agency.